You can't always get what you want

Early this year I heard about a book, something about success, putting goals together...whatever...ok, I am a sucker for all things self help.....it sounded interesting. I did a search and requested it from the library. I was like #58 on the list but I put the request in anyway and resigned myself to the wait meaning I instantly forgot about it. So when I got the email that it was being held for me I did a double take, then remembered, oh yeah, I had wanted to read this book.

Well, silly me, I was expecting a book written by Jack Kornfield, the Buddhist teacher who wrote A Path with Heart, an excellent book I already own and keep at my bedside. Imagine my surprise when I see the book is really by Jack Canfield, as in the guy who wrote all those Chicken Soup for the blah-de-blah books of which I have read none. In retrospect, it does seem a little weird a monk would have written a book about goal setting and success.

I had a therapist once who was perpetually puzzled by the fact I never set any goals for myself. I was 31 years old when I met her and she recognized I had been successful at a number of things but suggested I could gain even greater success if I would make a plan and set some goals.

Goals, schmoals. I never have time. I am too busy shooting from the hip and juggling my craziness to actually sit down and think. I tend to believe the journey is the destination and clutch onto this thought like a life raft. Even before Dan Eldon. Too much of a plan seemed to destroy the spontaneity of my life and would possibly only set me up for disappointment. So I have remained satisfied with my quasi-manic ADD approach. And although it has served me well in the past, it recently occurred to me that I have so many ideas spewing forth into nothingness. I thought perhaps I am to the point where it might be useful to actually organize.....I am not talking about my "things", they are already pretty organized.......I am talking about my brain. So I hired a "coach" to help me. She is really a therapist carefully disguised as a coach and she has been extremely helpful. Listening mainly but also helping me to clarify my thoughts into a cohesive order.

And then this book arrived. And, well, what can I say......sometimes you get what you need.